Today’s poem puts the jungle tiger right up against the silvery, winding river, looking for the common ground between them.
How Rivers Shape You
How rivers shape you
has more to do with you than the rivers
who go their own way
like a tiger through the chiaroscuro
night, moon and broadleaf fern
its home. The river
slides among the shadows too,
follows its own path, mostly. Occasionally
leaves the tried and true
to blaze a new trail. The tiger too
could run a new route each night
but doesn’t need to; it’s the biggest,
baddest out here, and it needn’t exert much
over a simple path. Anyway
what need it hide? Like the river
that accepts all that it passes,
the tiger knows every moment for what it is:
silver-lit crossroads, possibility, home.
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